


The Gift of Obedience

by cyoctrix



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ella Enchanted Fusion, Fairies, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 00:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyoctrix/pseuds/cyoctrix
Summary: Tom Riddle, the newest resident of Wool's Orphanage, was the only to be blessed by a fairy in many, many years. Later, when he first learns of his bleak beginnings, he'll have wished he were never born at all.





	The Gift of Obedience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exarite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [exarite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/pseuds/exarite) in the [TomarryFlashExchanges](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TomarryFlashExchanges) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Either Harry or Tom gifted with obedience and them still managing to make the best out of it.

Some fairy gifts were better than others. People didn't talk about this sort of thing often, because one never knew who (or what) was listening, but it was a well-known fact even without being put to words.

Lucky children were those few who were tucked into pretty cribs with flowers and vines and small shiny trinkets to pay tribute to the fairies who came to visit them upon their birth. Fairies liked looking at beautiful things displayed just so. Quaint baby humans with their dimpled smiles and glowing families deserved the best of gifts and fairies were all too willing to be the benefactor to earn parents' praise and adoration.

There is little of this to be found on a cold December night in front of an orphanage like Wool's. Were it not only a few days after Christmas, perhaps the child contained within the frayed wicker basket, lined with scratchy fabric and stained with vernix and blood as it was, wouldn't have looked quite so pathetic. 

A backdrop of flickering green and red lights, a mother wheezing a strange name in a breathless wail, a matron whose hands held a tremor of sickness and cold and knowing alike - it wasn't the sort of image one wanted to present a visiting fairy, but nonetheless was the scene that one Albus Dumbledore happened upon when he deigned to drop by.

Albus' face is sorrowful, his hands youthful and spry to bely his grey beard and rheumy eyes. He isn't an especially vain creature, this fairy - he's one more for the appearance of wisdom and stalwart grandiosity rather than outright beauty. That may yet save this child, this 'T-Tom, Tom, Tom _Marvolo_ Riddle, _Marvolo_, oh Tom', but…

"We may have to shorten his name to Tom," Albus says to the matron, his blue eyes glistening with tears unshed for this child who would never know his mother and for this mother who would never know her child. There is a grim brand of humor to be found in the words despite his fronted grief, but the startled matron can't manage to voice her offense at such callous disregard.

It isn't often the orphanage's charges were granted a fairy's gift. She has a bad feeling, but her guilt and distress at the inevitable loss of life stays her tongue. 

"Tom Marvolo Riddle." Albus moves closer to the basket, one hand reaching in to brush ever-so-lightly against the wispy curls yet unwashed so close to birth. He is so new that his eyes haven't yet opened, but neither is he crying. He hiccoughs with each labored breath and murmurs with what is likely hunger, but there's a queer bit of defiance in the way he refuses to scream like a proper child would in such circumstances.

Albus purses his mouth in faint disapproval.

"Your circumstances aren't ideal, are they?" The hand petting Tom's hair shifts, fingers now supporting that tiny chin. "Life will not be easy for you, no. You won't conform to expectation easily, Tom Riddle, but perhaps…" Albus pauses, deliberating, before a gentle smile alights on his features.

The matron quakes with foreboding, but neither child nor fairy pays her any mind. The bloodied woman on the bed has no more mind to pay, enough of her having now saturated the bed that it will have to be thrown out in the morning. Her lifeblood seeps more slowly, now, a rather fitting backdrop to the inauspicious words spoken by the supercilious fairy. 

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, I grant you the gift of obedience." 

There is no magic wand involved, not with Albus - some prefer such theatrics, but he quite likes the way it feels to have the magic travel directly from his hand to the new skin of the blessed child in question. It feels more personal, this way - he is as instrumental in the lives of the humans he gifts as the mothers who birth them.

The low, anguished cry of the matron, who knows of a backhanded 'gift' when she hears one, goes unheeded. Albus takes a deep breath, and with a single word from his mouth, Tom starts to wail, his own lungs doing a much better job than his mother's had in her last breath.

"There. That's better, isn't it?" Albus beams up at the matron, his joy palpable, before clapping once and disappearing with a slant of light from a moon that seems as loathe to look upon this dreadful tableau as any empathetic soul would be.

Tom Riddle, the newest resident of Wool's Orphanage, was the only to be blessed by a fairy in many, many years. Later, when he first learns of his bleak beginnings, he'll have wished he were never born at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Even if I don't finish this fic in time for flash fest to be over, I'm going to continue it nonetheless. I'm completely inspired. Thank you for prompting this, exarite!


End file.
